Sweep! Warriors finish off Cavs for back-to-back championships

Stephen Curry (30) walks off the arena floor with the Larry O'Brien Trophy after the Golden State Warriors defeated the Cleveland Cavaliers in Game 4 of the NBA Finals at Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio, on Friday, June 8, 2018. The Warriors won 108-85 to win the the 2018 NBA Championship. less

Stephen Curry (30) walks off the arena floor with the Larry O'Brien Trophy after the Golden State Warriors defeated the Cleveland Cavaliers in Game 4 of the NBA Finals at Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio, ... more

Stephen Curry (30) walks off the arena floor with the Larry O'Brien Trophy after the Golden State Warriors defeated the Cleveland Cavaliers in Game 4 of the NBA Finals at Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio, on Friday, June 8, 2018. The Warriors won 108-85 to win the the 2018 NBA Championship. less

Stephen Curry (30) walks off the arena floor with the Larry O'Brien Trophy after the Golden State Warriors defeated the Cleveland Cavaliers in Game 4 of the NBA Finals at Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio, ... more

CLEVELAND — Over the past eight months, as they toiled through frequent lapses in focus and urgency, the Warriors repeated three words: “We’ll be fine.”

Though the talent divide separating it from the rest of the league has tightened, Golden State knows that its biggest opponent is itself. In capping their NBA Finals sweep of the Cavaliers with a 108-85 win in Game 4 on Friday night at Quicken Loans Arena, the Warriors put it all together for four quarters, riding the same joy that made them the class of the league to their second straight championship and their third in four years.

Before hundreds of empty maroon seats, with no gold confetti fluttering from the ceiling at the final buzzer, Golden State vaulted into rarefied territory. Stephen Curry’s Warriors joined Bill Russell’s Boston Celtics (1957-66) as the only teams to have reached at least four consecutive Finals and won more than two championships. In addition to being the first franchise since Phil Jackson’s Lakers (2000-02) to win three championships in a four-year span, Golden State is just the ninth team in NBA history to achieve a Finals sweep.

By making such quick work of LeBron James and Cleveland, Golden State silenced anyone who had questioned its ability to respond when it counted most. All the concerns about the Warriors’ uneven play hardly matter now that Golden State has put the last dab of polish on its dynastic status.

“We just wanted to win, and however it came, we were excited about it,” Finals MVP Kevin Durant said. “But to win in a sweep feels pretty good.”

Instead of succumbing to an all-too-familiar emotional letdown in the face of a 3-0 series lead, the Warriors led nearly wire-to-wire in Game 4. They played stifling defense, made the extra pass and outscored Cleveland 25-13 in the third quarter to leave no doubt. James, who enters unrestricted free agency in July, checked out with 4:03 left to “M-V-P!” chants.

In what was probably his final series with the Cavaliers, James was borderline superhuman, averaging 34 points, 10 assists and 8.5 rebounds. It didn’t matter. Thanks to four All-Stars in their prime atop a deep roster, the Warriors did what the pundits had expected all along.

In the visitors’ locker room, as Champagne corks popped and cigars were lit, players spoke about a season marked by adversity. This 2017-18 Larry O’Brien trophy holds special significance because of all that the Warriors had to overcome to reach this point.

Each season has a distinct vibe, a feeling that permeates the locker room and spills onto the court.

In 2014-15, Steve Kerr’s first at the helm, the Warriors were relative upstarts who rode their joyful, egalitarian brand of basketball to the franchise’s first NBA title in 40 years. The following season, motivated by the urge to silence anyone who doubted that surprising run, Golden State won an NBA-record 73 regular-season games before it squandered a 3-1 series lead against the Cavaliers and watched James celebrate a championship at Oracle Arena.

Last season, after stunning the league with the addition of Durant, the Warriors again captured the NBA’s best regular-season record, bulldozed through the playoffs with a 16-1 mark, and needed only five games to get Finals redemption against Cleveland.

The league-wide consensus was that 2017-18 would provide similar dominance. With 12 players returning, Golden State figured only to get better, right? But even in the preseason, as Las Vegas anointed them the biggest championship favorites in NBA history, Kerr knew that challenges loomed.

Playing deep into June for three straight years took a mental toll on the Warriors. As Golden State slogged through an underwhelming 58-win season, it struggled to play with intensity, discipline and focus.

It didn’t help that the Warriors endured a slew of injuries to core players, most notably Curry. The Warriors’ chronic inconsistency forced Kerr to get creative.

Unable to play up to their immense potential, the Warriors couldn’t catch Houston and settled for the Western Conference’s No. 2 seed.

The Warriors ratcheted up the intensity in the playoffs, needing only five games to get by a Kawhi Leonard-less Spurs team in the first round before Curry returned for Game 2 of the Western Conference semifinals against New Orleans, which Golden State also dispatched in five games.

It took a team as elite as the Rockets to puncture Golden State’s air of invincibility. With its season hanging in the balance, Golden State had to storm back from double-digit halftime holes in Games 6 and 7 to secure a fourth straight date with Cleveland in the Finals.

In the Finals, Golden State faced a Cavaliers team that was the most flawed of the four it has seen at the sport’s summit. Still, James — at age 33, somehow at the peak of his powers — was enough to make the biggest of mismatches intriguing. If not for J.R. Smith’s mental blunder late in regulation of Game 1, or Durant’s 43-point masterpiece in Game 3, Cleveland could have entered Game 4 with a 2-1 lead.

Now, as the Cavaliers await James’ free-agency decision, the Warriors intend to savor their hardest-earned championship of the Kerr era. They may have said that they would be fine, but they didn’t necessarily always believe it.